


How to Save a Life

by kijilinn



Category: No Country for Old Men (2007)
Genre: Canon shattering, Gen, dammit he deserved better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 08:04:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14950808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijilinn/pseuds/kijilinn
Summary: The story wouldn't have happened if he had just decided to stay home. As good as the story was, he deserved more than he got.





	How to Save a Life

How do you save a life?

It seems like it’d be pretty simple. Just make sure someone keeps breathing. Make sure their heart keeps beating, their neurons keep firing. Just keep them from making the mistake that gets them killed.

But that means knowing which mistake is the fatal one.

Llewellyn Moss was careful as fuck. He knew how to lay a trail, how to hide one. He knew how to recognize when he was being tailed. He knew how to deal with dangerous people.

Some dangerous people, anyway. The average kinds.

Not Chigurh.

Llewelyn didn’t know what he was getting into when he found the deal gone wrong, bricks upon bricks of drugs and a blood trail leading off into the shimmering heat, one lone man begging for agua. He knew better than to do what he did, though. Two million dollars makes a lot of men smarter than Llewellyn stupid. And Llewellyn was far from stupid.

He knew he should never have gone back out there, bringing water to a man who was probably already dead. His mama never raised a cruel man, though. He couldn’t sleep for hearing that rasping voice: “Agua. Agua.” He’d filled a jug, assured Carla Jean he’d be right back and if he wasn’t, to tell his mama he loved her. It was a reflex, a moment of flashback to leaving for Nam.

“Your mama’s been dead for years, Llewellyn.”

He stopped at the door, his hat halfway to his head. “Huh. Guess I’ll tell her myself, then.”

He climbed into his truck, dropped the water in the footwell and froze when a hand touched his wrist. “Don’t go.”

Llewellyn jerked back from the woman sitting in the passenger seat of his truck. She hadn’t been there when he got in. “Who the fuck are you?” She smiled at him, just the barest flicker of a smile that highlighted full lips and cheeks that looked like they blushed easily. His eyes closed in a blink and she was gone. The cab of the truck was empty. “Okay, I’m losing it,” he muttered to himself. “I’m losing it. That’s all it is.” He patted the flat of his hand against the seat, assuring himself it was indeed empty. “That’s it.” He put the truck in gear and headed out of the trailer park.

When he was about half an hour from where he intended to park, he heard her again. “Don’t go.” Llewellyn gritted his teeth and gripped the steering wheel to keep from swerving. She had a pretty voice, low and musical with a more Northern accent, maybe Virginia or the Carolinas. He didn’t look at her this time, just kept driving. When he didn’t respond, there was a long silence and he wondered if she had vanished again. Instead, she reached forward into his peripheral vision and turned on the radio. “Do you like Steve Miller Band?”

The song on the radio was ‘Take the Money and Run.’

Llewellyn let himself peek at her and sighed in irritation: the cab was empty again. “What the fuck was in that beer?” he grumbled and turned off the radio. He parked the truck and climbed out, came around to collect the gallon jug and froze when he found her leaning against the passenger side door, holding the jug. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked again, feeling helpless.

“Fairy godmother,” she replied and extended the jug. “He’s already dead, you know.”

He took the water and stared at it for a moment, then looked up again. “Aw, c’mon!” he cried in exasperation when he realized she had vanished again. “What the hell is going on!?” He spun around in place and waved his arms wide, swinging the jug.

“It’s called a warning,” her voice said from over his shoulder and Llewellyn jumped with a cry. “Go home, pack Carla Jean into the car and run like hell.”

Llewellyn stared at her, almost afraid to blink. She was dressed in a pair of loose khaki pants that hung unfashionably low on her hips and a screen-printed t-shirt with some kind of foreign characters on it over a silhouette of a man in a martial arts stance. Dark auburn hair already starting to streak with grey framed her face, pulled back into a loose braid. She was heavier than Carla Jean, but almost the same height and she smiled at him from behind heavy-framed glasses. “Kinda short for a fairy godmother, aren’t you?’

“And you’re kind of tall for Carrie Fisher.” She crossed her arms over her chest with a comfortable grin. “Though I can almost picture the cinnamon buns.”

Llewellyn slowly shook his head, still staring. “So, now you’re sticking around? Now is when you decide to not vanish when I blink?”

“I am sorry about that.” She looked away and brushed at some dust on her pants, her cheeks flushing. She did blush easy and it was cute as hell. “I was having some technical troubles.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

She sighed and put her hands on her hips, rocking to lean her weight more to the left. “It means that I’m not supposed to be here, Llewellyn. It means there are some things in this world that you’re not going to understand and it isn’t magic, but you should still pay attention to it.”

He eyed her warily, then glanced out toward the stretch of dry wasteland he still needed to walk between himself and the abandoned man. “He’s already dead?”

“Yeah. Execution style. Someone’s been there.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

Llewellyn glared at her. “Very convenient.”

“For you, yes,” she smiled back. When he didn’t stop glaring at him, she sighed. “Look, I know this doesn’t make any sense. I’m just trying to help you. If you go back there, you’ll lose valuable time when you should already be running.”

“From what?”

“The man who’s coming for what you took.” She frowned at him. “I didn’t expect you to be this damn stubborn. Just trust me on this: the man who’s coming will kill you. Not right now. Not for a few weeks. But he’ll catch up to you and he will kill you. He’s the embodiment of the inevitable, Llewellyn. Stopping him is like trying to stop time.”

Llewellyn looked down at her shoes, chunky clogs with an oddly smooth, rounded line to them that seemed utterly out of place. As unfashionable as the cut of her pants, the way she stood, the way she wore her hair. “You said you don’t belong here,” he said quietly, slowly letting his eyes find her face again. “Where do you belong?”

“About forty years from now and two thousand miles North, give or take.” Before he could fully process her words, she sighed and reached to take the jug of water from him. “Get back in the truck and go home. There’s a tracker in the cash. Look for a wrapped stack of ones, right in the middle. I would put it somewhere under the trailer, as far from easy to get to as you can. Get Carla Jean and go. Don’t split up. Don’t send her to her mom’s. Take her with you and go.”

He slowly shook his head in confusion. “Why are you doing this?” he asked her. He felt helpless to do anything but stare as she took away the heavy jug of water.

She smiled at him and it was a sad smile, fond and almost lonely. She stepped closer to him and reached up to touch his face. “Because your story is tragic. Fantastically executed and told, but still tragic. I’d rather destroy the narrative than see it play out.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s the beauty,” she whispered, then stood on her toes to kiss him. “You don’t have to. Just listen to me.” Llewellyn stared at her for a few seconds, then stumbled when she put a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed. “Go home, Llewellyn. Take your wife and your money and run. Don’t stop running until the money is gone or you hear that Anton Chigurh is dead.”

“Sugar?”

Her smile was brilliant, almost blinding. It was blinding and he closed his eyes, turned his head away. “Live, Llewellyn,” her voice whispered. “Please. Run and live.”

When he opened his eyes again, he stood alone in the desert beside his truck, alone in the dark. Somewhere, a coyote howled and he jerked, looked around in bewilderment, then climbed back into his truck and drove away.

He left the jug of water.


End file.
